While the Keeper of the Seals Éric Dupond-Moretti will soon be referred to the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) for illegal taking of interests, the lawyers of three magistrates targeted by the minister have made it known that their clients want to be heard as witnesses. Éric Dupond-Moretti is suspected of having used his ministerial function to settle accounts with four magistrates against whom he had pleaded as a lawyer.
In a letter dated Tuesday August 1, Messrs. Marie Lessieu and François Saint-Pierre, lawyers for three of the magistrates (Ulrika Delaunay-Weiss, Patrice Amar and Édouard Levrault), asked the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, Rémy Heitz, that their clients be heard as witnesses.
These magistrates “are indeed the victims of the offenses of illegal taking of interests of which Éric Dupond-Moretti is accused” and their testimonies are “essential to the manifestation of the truth”. However, the two lawyers recall, the law “prohibits victims of offenses committed by a minister from becoming a civil party at the hearing”. They can only seek damages in court.
Two administrative investigations against four magistrates earned the Keeper of the Seals a referral to the CJR, the only body authorized to try members of the government for offenses committed in the exercise of their functions. The first, in September 2020, targeted Ulrika Delaunay-Weiss and Patrice Amar, prosecutors at the financial prosecutor’s office, and their leader, Éliane Houlette.
Mrs. Delaunay-Weiss and Mr. Amar had had the detailed telephone bills (fadettes) of Mr. Dupond-Moretti, then a lawyer, peeled through to flush out a possible mole who would have informed ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy that he was being tapped in a corruption case. Éric Dupond-Moretti had filed a complaint against them and had threatened to “kick them into the anthill”, underline Mes Lessieu and Saint-Pierre. The second concerned Édouard Levrault, a former investigating judge seconded to Monaco, who had indicted one of Me Dupond-Moretti’s clients. The latter had criticized “cowboy” methods. Ms. Delaunay-Weiss was ultimately not prosecuted. Mrs. Houlette, and MM. Amar and Levrault had been exonerated by the Superior Council of the Judiciary.
In its decisions, the disciplinary body of the magistrates had considered that the minister “had found himself in an objective situation of conflict of interest”, recall the two lawyers. Mr. Dupond-Moretti reiterated that he was only “following the recommendations of his administration” in launching these administrative investigations.
